In practice, the US has on occasion encountered difficulty in its Imperial progress, most often due to country leaders proving resistant to American colonisation. In such cases, if payments of cash and the promise of free weapons fail to turn a patriot into a traitor, the obstacle must unfortunately be eliminated. Following is a list of prominent foreign individuals whom the US assassinated or, in a few instances, tried to kill and failed, including three attempts on the life of China’s Premier Zhou En-lai.
The list does not include assassinations the US subcontracted to Israel’s Mossad or to other groups, and also does not include a long list of more than 100 lesser figures whom the CIA has routinely eliminated throughout South and Central America, Asia and Africa. Only two nations in the world have ever had an official policy of state-sponsored assassinations, and they still have them today – the US and Israel.
The official CIA Assassination Manual, released to the public under a court order, contained detailed instructions on the methods of elimination of political obstacles. Here is one such example:
“For secret assassinations…the contrived accident is the most effective technique. When successfully executed, it causes little excitement and is only casually investigated. The most effective accident .. is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface. Elevator shafts, stair wells, unscreened windows and bridges will serve. The act may be executed by sudden, vigorous grabbing of the ankles, tipping the subject over the edge.”
On the topic of Dag Hammarskjold, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, in early 2015 news reports revealed that Sweden had formally asked the UN to reopen the investigation into the man’s death, and with a specific request to all UN nations to release all documents in their possession.
A New York Times article noted that this event had been “an open wound” in Sweden for more than 50 years and that the nation would like some closure. The same article noted what it called “persuasive evidence” that Hammarskjold’s aircraft had been attacked.
On the death of Pakistan’s leader Mohammed Zia Ul-Haq, the CIA doesn’t mind sacrificing its own on occasion. Zia Ul-Haq and many of his most senior staff were on a US military C-130 transport along with the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Arnie Raphel, when the plane crashed and exploded shortly after take-off. The cause of the crash was never publicly stated but media reports claimed the US sent a team of investigators to assist the Pakistanis but that the two sides reached “sharply different conclusions”.
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Larry Romanoff is a frequent contributor to Global Research.